August 13, 2015

John Robson: I can't vote for the Harper Conservatives. I just can't

John Robson

Elections are such infuriating spectacles that sometimes one doesn't know which obscenity to utter first. But I've decided to aim my initial outburst at the Harper Tories.

I cannot
vote for them. I just can’t. They should be my natural choice but their coarse,
vindictive, proudly unprincipled cynicism must not be rewarded with electoral
success, regardless of the consequences.

Let’s start
with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s first major campaign pledge: to make the
home renovation tax credit permanent if he is reelected. If it were economics,
it would clearly be bad economics, aiming to “stimulate” one of the few sectors
of the economy doing so well it already has the government worried about a
bubble.

Worse, it’s
yet another “boutique” tax credit, disguised spending cunningly designed to
look as though government is getting smaller, while actually making it bigger.
The cliche that Harper shrank government suits partisans on all sides, but it
is false.

Worse still,
it rests on the premise that anything you want should be subsidized. The Tories
were already pumping out dozens of press releases a week touting handouts to
everyone from bison farmers to door makers, which assumes that nothing good can
be produced through unaided private markets, a theory not even the NDP ever
endorsed. Now they’ve doubled down, promising to subsidize anything you happen
to like.

If you’re going to get
socialism, at least get it from honest socialists.

According to
the prime minister, “For most Canadians, the family home is their biggest asset
and their most significant investment in their future financial security. I’m
therefore very pleased to announce that to help make it more affordable for
Canadians to adapt their homes to their changing needs and to maintain and
increase those houses’ values, we will establish a new home renovation tax
credit.”

There’s
absolutely no claim here that such handouts are a legitimate government function.
It’s a bribe, plain, simple and naked: vote for us and we’ll give you money.
Lots of it.

It was bad
enough for them to subsidize my children at other people’s expense through the
enriched Universal Child Care Benefit. But my patio? Could it be more crass, or
insulting?

If taken
seriously as political philosophy, it’s die-hard socialism. And as I’ve said
before, if you’re going to get socialism, at least get it from honest
socialists. But of course it’s not meant to be taken seriously. It’s just the
nudge and wink that accompanies the envelope full of cash. And that corrosive
dishonesty is the real sticking point for me.

Harper wrote
his 1991 master’s thesis on “public choice” theory that, as his abstract put
it, “policymakers are motivated by political goals, in particular electoral
goals, rather than the social optima assumed by traditional macroeconomic
policy prescriptions.” As a Reform MP and National Citizens’ Coalition
president, he understood this to be a warning. Now he treats it as an operating
manual.

Power has
corrupted him and his party. I wrote nearly two years ago that Harper is unfit
for office because he lied to Parliament over the Wright-Duffy affair,
insolently telling incompatible tales five days apart in October 2013, and
lying about having contradicted himself.

Instead of
recoiling from this cynical deceit, his party enthusiastically embraced it. If
they think him worthy of public trust, they aren’t either.

It doesn’t
matter where you look. The Tories talk tough in foreign affairs and praise the
military. But they gut defence to fund cynical handouts. They rope in the rubes
by feigning concern about traditional marriage, abortion and God. But they do
nothing. Indeed, when Health Canada approved the abortion drug RU-486, this administration,
which takes credit for every sparrow that takes wing in Canada, suddenly hid
under the bed.

These people
are not honourable. Indeed, they laugh at honour. They cherish the low blow,
the devious tactic, the unprincipled bribe, in a relentless, sneering, partisan
tone. People I know and like retweet Pierre Poilievre with vicious glee. I weep
for them and my country.

So am I
contemplating voting Liberal or NDP? Ugh. Neither of the main opposition
parties has recently shown themselves to be dishonourable. They may just be
confused. But Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau will never be ready for prime time
and neither will the NDP’s program.

I believe
either would be an instructive disaster in power. But I cannot vote for
disaster for my country, regardless of its educational merits. So I don’t know
what to do. But I know what not to do.

Self-proclaimed
“realists” may consider me unreasonably fastidious. But I will not give my vote
to a party that disgusts and appalls me. Neither should you.